Tom Cain - Carver

‘I’m sure you know that I had that Englishman of yours,’ she said, with exaggerated casualness. ‘Oh, sorry… hasn’t he told you? Well, perhaps he didn’t want you to know how much he begged me. It was quite embarrassing, to be honest. I hate to hear a grown man whine, don’t you? If it hadn’t been work, I wouldn’t have bothered.’

Petrova looked her straight in the eyes, but said nothing. Her silence irritated Ginger. Petrova had changed. In the old days she certainly would have risen to that bait.

‘He finishes so quickly, though, doesn’t he?’ Ginger went on. ‘I must say, I’d expected more, looking at him. But you can never tell…’

Still Alix remained silent. The stuck-up bitch was becoming seriously irritating. Ginger kept going, searching for Petrova’s weak spots, knowing that one of her verbal poison darts would sooner or later get through, ‘He was giving me the eye, you know, upstairs. He didn’t recognize me, I could tell. He just liked what he saw and wanted to fuck it. I hope he won’t be too disappointed when he sees you…’

Ginger looked at Petrova. She felt she was getting closer, and her natural instinct for inflicting pain put the next words in her mouth: ‘Such a pity that it will be one of the last things he ever sees.’

Oh, that was better! There was fear in Petrova’s eyes now, and a nervous anxiety in her voice as she finally broke her silence to ask, ‘What do you mean?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know? But I’ll tell you this, it’s not just Carver, it’s all of them. Take a tip from an old friend: this is one party to avoid.’

Petrova started forward, obviously wanting to warn Carver, and Ginger stepped sideways into her path, blocking her way.

‘Get out of my way,’ Petrova snapped.

‘No, that’s not possible,’ Ginger said. ‘I can’t have you raising the alarm. But don’t worry, we’ll be quite safe down here.’

‘I said, get out of my way.’

‘And I said no.’

Carver had searched through a warren of passages and checked a multitude of rooms. But the man he was looking for was nowhere to be seen. So now there was only one possibility. He’d left the building. Carver put his wrist to his mouth and spoke into his microphone, giving his ID and current position before asking, ‘Has anyone exited this way in the past few minutes?’ He tried to fight the rising fear that he’d lost the man. ‘I’m looking for a male, medium height, dark hair, with a moustache.’

‘Yeah, there was someone answering to that description. Hang on… yeah, one of the waiters, Jerzy Kowalski.’

‘Any idea where he went?’

‘Yes. He was observed turning right on Gresham Street. He then proceeded to the Wax Chandlers’ Hall, on the far side of Gutter Lane, and entered the building.’

‘Why?’ Carver asked, rushing towards the Gresham Street exit.

‘Sorry, don’t get you?’

‘Why did he enter the building? Is there any reason why a waiter would be needed there tonight? The place is being used for business meetings.’

‘Sorry. Can’t help you.’

‘Well, somebody fucking find out!’

The door to the street was just up ahead. But as Carver ran towards it he was gripped by a foreboding that this was just a replay of the Rosconway disaster. Once again he would end up in the right place, but at the wrong time: always a step behind Malachi Zorn and unable to stop the slaughter.

Zorn made his way through the Wax Chandlers’ Hall, past the three bodies in the conference room, to the office where Braddock was waiting to go into action.

He was sitting by a window, cradling the XM-25 Punisher in his lap. The lights in the room were off, and the blinds on the windows were down, with just enough of the summer evening glow from outside seeping in to prevent the room being totally dark. When the time came, Braddock would lift the blind and open the window just far enough to allow him to aim and fire. Across Gutter Lane from where he sat, barely twenty metres away, were the five tall, arched windows of the Goldsmiths’ Hall, glowing gold with the light from the great chandeliers. Braddock had four grenades. He was going to put them in quick succession through the four windows nearest to him. And then he was going to get the hell out.

‘How are you doing?’ Zorn asked.

‘All right.’

‘We’re all good, huh? That’s great.’

Braddock said nothing. He had no intention of getting into a conversation. He didn’t like Zorn being here, to begin with, and there was something about the American that only made his misgivings worse. The man seemed hyped up and jittery. Braddock was out of his comfort zone, and the stress of it all was making him overexcited just when it was important to stay totally calm. He had a pair of ear protectors, like headphones, around his neck. Now he put them on.

‘OK, OK, I won’t disturb you,’ said Zorn, getting the message.

Razzaq had left a laptop in the room for him, and Zorn used it to get online and check the markets. With just over an hour of trading left on the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones and S and P 500 index were both up almost three per cent on the day. That was exactly what Zorn would have expected. Markets almost always overreact on the downside after a disaster, whether man-made or natural, and then recover the moment that people start seeing the opportunities that always follow catastrophe. His own very public vote of confidence had only served to give the whole process a kick-start: he had set a bandwagon rolling and, since most traders liked to run with the herd, they had raced to get onboard. Once again he would be alone as he went in precisely the opposite direction.

The men who had trained Alix how to defend herself had drummed some very simple, basic rules into their pupils. In any fight, the winner is almost always the one who strikes first. So do not wait to be attacked. Take the initiative. Be decisive. And do not stop until you are absolutely certain that your opponent cannot do you any harm.

Perhaps it was the sight of a woman who had been trained in the same class as her that made Alix’s mind flash back to those days. But whatever the reason, it suddenly became clear to her that her only chance of getting past Celina Novak was to take her by surprise and then forget whatever qualms she might have about instigating violence.

Alix feinted to go past Novak again. But then, as the other woman moved to block her once more, Alix raised her knee and kicked sideways and down, driving the hard point of her heel into the side of Novak’s right knee, collapsing the joint and making her scream in excruciating pain. Novak’s leg gave way, and as she went down, Alix stepped behind her and caught hold of her hair before she had time to fight back. Alix gripped hard, and then, going with the direction of Novak’s fall, smashed her face against the side of the basin counter. She heard a sickening crackle like an eggshell being crushed underfoot, and Novak’s nose collapsed into a misshapen pulp, smearing blood and snot against the hard plastic counter top as she slid down to the floor, hitting the back of her head against the rock-hard ceramic tiles.

Novak lay there, half-dazed, writhing as she tried to draw up her elbows and her good left leg to push herself upright. Alix told herself to remain detached, and let the training that had been drummed into her twenty years before take over. This was a necessary means to a justifiable end. Lives were at stake: she could not afford to be squeamish.

She waited till Novak’s knee was bent to ninety degrees, presenting an ideal target. Then she took a deep breath, gathered her strength and jabbed her heel hard into the soft skin at the side of the joint, dragging another bubbling, coughing attempt at a scream from Novak’s blood-filled mouth. Alix aimed one more kick with her shoe’s pointed toe at Novak’s temple, putting her down again and leaving her flat out on the floor, barely conscious and hardly able to breathe.